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Topic: Electric pick up for tender (Read 1564 times)

Thanks for all the replies. I ran the locomotive toady and it ran very well with sound muted or on with an occasional short in the pilot and front truck area where track dipped. I can see where the front wheels have rubbed on the frame. The entire front frame and pilot appear to be hanging way too low. I can fix that.

Back to the tender, the wheels on both ends of the axle are insulated, for sure. I do not want any wipers to be the main pickups but rather suplemental. If I could figure out how to post jpegs I have some but am not smart enough to figure it out. I post pics on other forums and have no problems. I have pics on Railimages, can they be used?

Shows how the axles ride in the "bearings" , you can see the insulators on the wheels, they are like that on other end of axle ..................................

And finally, one of the wheels .........................

If you lool closely at the back side of the down facing wheel you can see the black plastic ring around the axle. My last thought about adding wipers would be to replace the axle retaining plate with plastic or pc board and glue wipers onto the new plate and then run decoder wire from the wipers up into tender and connect to the engine pickup wires.

Lemosteam - thanks for the hint, I was actually posting the pics when your reply came in. I'm not as dense as I thought.

Wow, okay, nothing like I envisioned. My centipede tender has the axles with points riding in the brass sideframesthemselves. Yours only has the sideframes on there for show. Yup. In that case, wipers as you are suggesting is probably your only bet.Sorry for confusing the issue.

mmagliaro - no problem, no confusion. I appreciate your time to make the response. I really think that very fine phosphour bronze wire bent with a loop on the end to very lightly rub the back side of wheel is doable if I make a non conductive plate to hold the axles in their "bearings". If I use a .10 wire it should remain flexible enough to allow the axle to float in their grooves. I can afix the bronze wire to the plate and attach decoder wire to one end and run that up through the floor. As I stated, I just want these to be supplemental electrical pickup to help loco over switches. I did notice some hesitation yesterday on some of the switches. I think this would help make the loco performance better. ? ? ?

Would it be possible to cut the bottom of the tender floor, the part with the grooves for the axles, in 2 pieces and electrically isolate them from the rest of the tender? That way you could attach a wire to each separate plate and use standard wheel sets with one insulated wheel to transfer power. This is assuming that the axles actually contact that part.

Termire - that is not a half bad idea. The only problem that I can see is the axles, most likely, do not contact the retaining plate when tender is on the rails. You can see how the axles in the grooves appear to be well below the plate line. However, this gives me this idea; cut the part that holds the axles where there are 3 axles on front 3/5's and two axles on back 2/5's. grind away enough on the cut side of the groove block so they do not touch. On opposite ends of these two pieces drill and tap for a #90 screw to attach decoder wire and run those wires into the tender. Then use some of the new wheels now available that are insulated on one end only. With wheels in correctly, I would have 3 wheels picking up say right rail and two wheels pick up from left rail. No wipers needed. That should be very easy to do and provide reliable, non braking effect, pickups.

You can see in the pics that the groove block is screwed to the floor. I would have one screw in each piece and if I new of some type of insulating glue it could be used to insulate between floor and groove block.

What about making as PCB axle cover with the copper facing toward the track to replace the steel plate. Solder your wipers (VERY flexible wire or phosphor bronze strips) to that and bend them up behind each wheel or rearward to make contact on the back of the wheel on both sides. Take a razor saw after and saw a groove to separate the copper down the middle and remove any copper from under the plate screws. Solder a wire on each side in the front or rear and run each up into the tender.

... if I new of some type of insulating glue it could be used to insulate between floor and groove block.

May have something there.Thanks

Carl

I wouldn't depend on glue, but you don't have to. A thin sheet of .005" styrene can be put in there as an insulator. That would not be visible in the ride height, and if it messes up the coupler height by that tiny amount,you could probably adjust the coupler mount for it. You will need nylon screws, remember, to screw the split block up into the floor to avoid a short. But they do make 00-80 and 00-90 nylon screws. I'd drill a second hole in each piece and use 2 screws, rather than rely on 1 screw and some glue.